Vehicle seats in general, and driver and front passenger seats in particular, are typically designed to be adjustable, thereby providing the user with the means of achieving a comfortable driving position. These adjustments are particularly important for the driver's seat in order to provide the driver with adequate visibility as well as ensuring that all necessary vehicle controls, such as the throttle and brake pedals, steering wheel, stalk-mounted controls, dash mounted controls, and gear shift, are within easy and comfortable reach. Early generation car seats had limited adjustability, typically only forward-backward motion along a longitudinal axis and incline of the backrest, both operated manually using levers. More recently, car seats have been developed that not only offer longitudinal position and backrest incline adjustments, but also provide one or more other adjustments including seat incline, seat height, headrest incline, headrest height, seat width, backrest width, and lumbar support. These adjustments are often motor actuated, requiring the user to simply select the aspect of the seat to be adjusted and then make the adjustment by pressing or otherwise moving a corresponding switch.
Vehicle manufacturers use a variety of means to insure that the vehicle's user is able to locate and make the desired seat adjustments with minimal distraction, even if the user is not familiar with that particular vehicle. For example, seat adjustment switches are often mounted on the side of the seat or adjacent to the seat on the door panel, thus making it easy for the user to reach down or over and make the desired adjustment while driving. Additionally, these seat adjustment switches are often shaped to make their use intuitive. For example, FIG. 1 shows an exemplary switching mechanism designed to be mounted on the lower portion of a car seat and to control the longitudinal position, backrest incline and headrest incline adjustments of a motorized vehicle seat. As shown, switches 101-103 are configured to mimic the relative shapes and locations of the car seat, backrest and headrest of the car seat. With very little experimentation, the user is able to determine that sliding switch 101 forward-backward moves the seat forward-backward, respectively; tilting switch 102 in directions 105/106 about axis 107 adjusts the incline of the backrest forward-backward, respectively; and tilting switch 103 in directions 109/110 about axis 111 adjusts the incline of the headrest forward-backward, respectively. FIG. 2 shows a similarly configured set of switches 201/203 according to the prior art, these switches allowing longitudinal adjustment of the seat position by moving switch 201 in a forward direction 205 or a backward direction 207; backrest tilt by moving switch 203 in a forward direction 209 or a backward direction 211; seat height adjustment by moving switch 201 in an upward direction 213 or a downward direction 215; and seat cushion tilt by moving switch 201 in an upward direction 217 or a downward direction 219.
Although the car seat control modules described above provide the user with a relatively intuitive set of seat adjustment controls, this form of control may not be optimal under a variety of circumstances. For example, in some sports cars the distance between the car seat and the door panel may be inadequate to provide sufficient room for the user to access and manipulate a full set of seat mounted or door panel mounted controls. Alternately, the shape and/or size of the seat may make it difficult to mount a seat control module within the side of the seat. Alternately, a vehicle manufacturer may find that seat mounted control modules, while intuitive, are too distracting for the driver to use during vehicle operation. Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a means of adjusting the seats of a vehicle that is intuitive, easy to use, and applicable to a wide range of vehicles and car seats. The present invention provides such a means.